Fei Long is a fictional character in the Street Fighter series. He made his first appearance in Super Street Fighter II in 1993 as one of the four new characters introduced in the game. In the series, he is a martial artist and action movie star. Fei Long was patterned after real-life martial arts movie star Bruce Lee and the character's design and moves make reference to Lee, his fighting style often described as a homage to the actor. Fei Long has been well received. He has appeared in other Street Fighter media, including the animated films and series, comics as well as subsequent games such as Street Fighter Alpha 3 and the home versions of Street Fighter IV.
Character design
Fei Long was designed as a pastiche of the real-life martial artist and Hong Kong movie star Bruce Lee. The English localization of the original arcade game pays tribute to Bruce Lee by having Fei Long state "there could never be another legend like the great one and his son", a reference to Bruce Lee and his son Brandon Lee, who died shortly before the release of the game, although these references were removed in the revised localization of the Game Boy Advance version of the game. His alternate costume in Street Fighter IV resembles Bruce Lee's outfit in Enter the Dragon. His other alternate costume is inspirated in Kato from the Green HornetTV series. Finally, there´s a 3rd outfit that Bruce Lee used to wear in his daily life: a very nice white suit, with a nice tie and belt. His Ultra combo in Street Fighter IV, Rekkashingeki is a series of flurry punches into an uppercut followed by a flying kick which resembles a signature technique of Bruce Lee. Fei Long has been given a new Ultra combo in Super Street Fighter IV, the Gekirinken which furthers the homage to Bruce Lee by performing a flurry of punches ending with the "one inch punch."
In Super Street Fighter II, Fei Long is depicted as an action film star from Hong Kong who enters the World Warrior tournament to test his skill as a martial artist. In his ending in the game, he gives up his film career and forms his own kung-fu style known as the Soaring-Heaven style. His stage was inspired by the Tiger Balm Garden. Fei Long reappears in the console versions of Street Fighter Alpha 3, where his stage was inspired by Kowloon Park. The game takes place before Fei Long achieved fame as a movie star, as he makes his first hit movie in his ending in the game. He returns as a playable character in the console versions of Street Fighter IV. As a non-playable character, Fei Long appears as a spectator in Dan Hibiki's stage in Street Fighter Alpha 2 and in Felicias ending in Super Gem Fighter: Mini-Mix, in which he also has a cameo in one of the stages, in a ramen restaurant. A bus advertisement for a movie Fei Long is featured in appears in Street Fighter V. It is not confirmed as of yet if he will be a playable fighter in the game.
Other appearances
In , Fei Long appears as an opponent who challenges Ryu to a match while taking a break from filming his new movie. Despite putting up a good fight, Fei-Long loses after Ryu breaks his arm and knocks him out with a Tatsumaki Senpukyaku, but he and Ryu become friends after Fei Long realises that his opponent was the one who beat Sagat. Following their fight, Ryu and Fei-Long take a walk, during which Fei-Long mentions that Sagat now works under M. Bison for Shadowlaw, which leads Ryu to first learn about the organization. In the original Japanese version he is voiced by real-life mixed martial artistMasakatsu Funaki, while in the English dub he is voiced by a then-unknown Bryan Cranston, who would later go on to find fame with Seinfeld and Breaking Bad. In the anime series Street Fighter II V, Fei Long is portrayed as martial artist and movie star who is a childhood acquaintance of Chun-Li, having been trained by her father, Inspector Dorai. He ends up fighting against Ken, who poses as a stunt actor during the filming of a new movie, and the two become friendly acquaintances along with Ryu. He later fights Cammy, who injured but failed to kill Dorai, in the hospital, where Cammy had been sent by Balrog to finish the job. After Cammy realises that she was fooled, she and Fei Long join forces to take Balrog down. In the series, Fei Long looks up to Dorai as a father figure, and tells Dorai's superior that Dorai meant more to him than his biological father. In UDON's comic adaptation of the Street Fighter storyline, Fei Long is caught up in Shadaloo's affairs after turning down a criminal movie producer's offer. Eventually, he joins Chun-Li and Gen to bring down the heads of the Hong Kong Shadaloo operation, Xiayu and Yanyu. They engage the pair at their Triad compound and fight off a legion of thugs and criminals before they send the duo running. Fei Long also appears briefly in the manga Cammy by Masahiko Nakahira. He challenges Cammy to a fight although he is ignored by her, and then is forced to return to a movie shooting. Nakahira depicted Fei Long wearing Bruce Lee's trademark yellow tracksuit with black sidestripes from the film Game of Death. Fei Long was slated to appear in the 1994 live-action filmStreet Fighter, but was replaced by Captain Sawada, an original character created for the movie. Sawada serves as one of Colonel Guile's allies alongside Cammy White and T. Hawk, and participates in the attack on Bison's base in the movie's climax. In the, Sawada is a playable character, and his end credits theme is a remix of Fei Long's theme.
Reception
The Seattle Times described Fei Long as "the deadliest" of the new characters introduced in Super Street Fighter II. In the 2002 poll by Capcom in Japan, he was voted as 38th-most popular Street Fighter character. UGO.com included him amongst the top 50Street Fighter characters, calling him "super serious competitor is a mainstay in the series and a fan favorite." The Guardian ranked him as the 12th-top Street Fighter character in 2010. IGN ranked Fei Long at number 19 in their 2008 list of top Street Fighter characters, stating "If there's any martial arts star who deserves a videogame homage, though, Bruce Lee is probably the one. Fei Long helped begin a long string of characters inspired by the kung fu icon Bruce Lee". Ranking him ninth on its list of top 10 Street Fighter characters of all time, WhatCulture declared "Fei Long is the one character that stands head" above the Street Fighters pastiche. GamesRadar featured him their article "Kickass Bruce Lee clones", noting that his gameplay performance "captured the essence of Lee's iconic fighting style in his films."
